StarMade v0.200.332 - Reactor System Enhancement and Fixes

This update contains some fixes for problems with the last update, as well as a new advanced system for reactor design.

Reactor Dimension

Our goal with this system is to make every entity shape equally viable. Stabilizer care about the distance between themselves and their reactor, which encourages you to build in one dimension. We worked on a method to allow this distance to be influenced indirectly by the size and placement of additional stabilizer groups. This mechanic does not change your existing ships but it allows you to now put the reactor in different positions with multiple stabilizers closer to it.

How it works

A reactor has 6 relative sides (Front, Back, Right Left, Top, Bottom) and we simply provide a bonus to your overall stabilization for every additional side that contains a stabilization group.

The maximum bonus provided by a side, is set in the config so we can balance it if needed. You don’t immediately get the maximum bonus though, as that would be exploitable.

To calculate the bonus of 1 of the 6 sides, we take the stabilizer group with the most efficient of that side and compare it with the most efficient group on the entire ship. If they’re equal sized, then you get the full bonus, else only a fraction.

The bonuses add up where the maximum one would be used if you use all sides with equal stabilizer groups.

This will not mean that a cube ship will be able to place stabilizers at 1/6th of the distance when using all 6 sides for bonus, but you will be able to place them a lot closer to make that shape comparable with a long ship in terms of efficiency, and therefore viable. The same goes for any other basic shape.

The examples below normally require 100 meters distance between the reactor and the stabilizers. All 3 examples have the same stabilization and regeneration.

1 group of 200 stabilizers at 100 meters.

2 groups of 100 stabilizers at 50 meters.

4 groups of 50 stabilizers at ~25 meters.

Stabilization Axis

The bonus system works on fixed axis for simplicity. However, it is possible to modify this axis freely. There is a new tab “Reactor” in the advanced build mode, which lets you do that. These are also applied and saved by individual reactor.

You are only required to modify it if your stabilizer groups are in the “corners”, as then the game can’t really decide to which dimension it belongs to.

Fixes and Additions

Fixed a bug that would fill up VRAM slowly (causing fps drops)

Added a system to search an entity by block type. Select a block in the dropdown in “Selection” in advanced build mode and hit the “highlight” button. All blocks of that type will be highlighted, which will help a lot when refitting ships

Turret aiming left click will now focus fire (like beams) if your cursor is on a structure. Right click will be unfocused fire.

AI now prefers to aim on reactors, chambers and stabilizers (will use the scanning system in the future)

Fixed several crashes

Fixed some chunks not being editable anymore

Fixed some ships not loading due to memory optimization using compressed chunks

Fixed warp-gates not loading due to data discrepancy

Fixed sector import failing with certain entities

Fixed reactor HP removal on block destruction issue

Fixed reactor overcapacity issue

Fixed energy stream not always disappearing

Fixed old blocks still appearing in factories (set deprecated to false to bring those back)

Fixed RHP not deducting correctly on integrity explosions

Overdrive, Ion, Piercing and EMP Effects are disabled now as they don’t work fully and will be replaced in the weapons update.

Work is continuing on the weapon update. There will be some news soon amongst other things on new mechanics making armor a lot more viable.